Lydia Brashear Tiede
Biographic Data
| ID | 804860 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lydia Brashear Tiede |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lydia Brashear |
| FAMILY NAME | Tiede |
| SIGNATURE | TIEDE L B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Houston |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0892-4649 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 155 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 22 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Rebuilding the Rule of Law in the Era of Democratic Backsliding
Signed, Sealed, Counted? An Experimental Study of Mail-in Ballot Signature Verification
Trust in elections is paramount for a democracy and citizens are more likely to cast ballots and support election results when they perceive election processes as trustworthy. However, with the advent of greater dependence on algorithms in election processes, we ask does a reliance on algorithms or a hybrid system for verifying signatures allay or increase citizens’ confidence in using them in elections? To answer this, we use unique survey exper…
Judicial backsliding
We have a highly developed theoretical and empirical literature on judicial independence, but there is less research on judicial backsliding: the process through which duly elected executives reduce court independence and thus collapse the separation of powers. We conceptualize judicial backsliding and argue that legislatures as well as executives are likely to be implicated in it. First, we confirm that populist leaders are more likely to engage…
The Policy Impact of Court Decisions in Latin America and South Asia
Courts that Matter addresses whether courts can influence policy change.As indicated by Botero's title, she answers affirmatively under certain conditions.The book presents a well-developed theory and evidence from eight court cases in Argentina and Colombia as well as additional cases from India.Unlike other studies that only analyze court impact by whether courts' decisions are enacted and enforced, she goes further by defining impact in novel …
Influenced by Power or Reasons? The Role of Amicus Curiae Briefs in Constitutional Court Decision-Making
In what ways do amicus curiae or friend of the court briefs shape the decisions of constitutional courts outside of the United States? Using a unique data set of more than nine hundred briefs from the Bulgarian Constitutional Court, hearing cases of constitutional review and legal interpretation, we analyze the Court’s propensities to both borrow language from briefs and cite the identity of interested parties. We find that the Court is more incl…
The Role of Comparative Law in Political Science
Comparing laws cross-nationally elucidates how they restrain political and societal actors and how actors may use law instrumentally to reach their goals. The Article analyzes the extant use of comparative law in political science and describes areas where a more in-depth comparative study of law may enhance understandings of how law shapes politics, particularly in the areas of governance, judicial behavior, rights protection, and democratic tra…
The Influence of Procurator Generals in Constitutional Review
After democratic transitions, many Eastern European countries reformed their political institutions in a piecemeal fashion. Focusing on the Bulgarian Constitutional Court from 1992 to 2012 and the Soviet-style procurator general, we analyze how legal reforms operate in practice in transitional societies. Using original data, we find that judges are influenced by the powerful and unaccountable procurator general. Judges’ decisions to strike down l…
Mixed Judicial Selection and Constitutional Review
Almost half the constitutional court judges worldwide are selected by a mixed selection system, whereby a specific number of judges are selected by different government institutions. What are the implications of this selection method and its variations for judges’ individual choices on constitutional review cases? An examination of vote choice on the Chilean and Colombian constitutional courts indicates that judges’ decisions to strike down laws …
Explaining dissensus on the Bulgarian constitutional court
Using original data, this study investigates the determinants of dissent on the Bulgarian Constitutional Court, which occurs frequently and is high by comparative standards. This analysis contributes to the debate on whether courts and judges are driven by policy motivations or legal doctrine by providing evidence from a constitutional court created after a democratic transition. Dissent is more likely when the court as a whole and individual jud…
The political determinants of judicial dissent
Many judicial scholars argue that judicial dissent stems from partisanship or political differences among judges on courts. These arguments are evaluated using the variation in political backgrounds on a constitutional court, Chile’s Constitutional Tribunal, using case-level and vote-level data from 1990 until 2010. The analysis shows that the rate of dissent rises after major reforms to the powers and judicial selection mechanism of the Tribunal…
Party Labels and Vote Choice in Judicial Elections
The vast majority of states use elections to select at least some of their judges. The chief institutional variation in these contests is whether the candidates’ partisanship appears on the ballot. This article expands on the extant literature with new data to examine how providing a party label influences voters’ decisions. Using a survey experiment involving a low-visibility state appellate court, we find that affixing party labels to judicial …
The Rule of Law in Post-Conflict Settings
This paper analyzes whether and to what extent countries reconstitute the rule of law following civil conflict. Drawing on an original data set of 47 cases in which conflict ended between 1970 and 1999, we find that the cessation of conflict has at best a modest effect on the rule of law. On average, countries revert to the pre-conflict rule-of-law status quo ante. In simple models, rule of law prior to the onset of conflict is the best indicator…
Evaluating Theories of Decision-making on the Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal
High courts with abstract review powers to find laws unconstitutional may provide a strong check on other political actors and influence public policy if the judges in these courts are impartial decision makers. This paper tests existing judicial decision-making theories in relation to the behavior of judges on the Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal who are selected exclusively by Congress. Taking advantage of an original data set of judges’ votes …
Economic Development Assumptions and the Elusive Curse of Oil
Scholars have argued that oil resources lead to poor quality institutions and governance, which causes slower economic growth, an increased propensity for civil war, and other maladies. Such conclusions, however, rest on strong modernization assumptions that oil resources are unrelated or detrimental to the level of economic development. Utilizing a unique multilevel version of extreme bounds analysis (EBA), we find that oil's deleterious effects…
Ideological Voting on Chile's Constitutional Tribunal
In this article, we examine the relationship between judicial behavior on the Chilean Constitutional Tribunal and the political background of its judges since the constitutional reforms of 2005. We first examine judges' positions on rulings and find that some distinction has emerged among judges with different political backgrounds and between partisan members and nonpartisans. Notably, these distinctions vary across subject matter and case type.…
Legal Reform and Good Governance
Legal reforms throughout Latin America have increased the transparency of the criminal justice process and improved defendants' rights. Many scholars conjecture that such reforms also improve “good governance” and by extension economic development. Paradoxically, despite such assertions, there are few quantitative studies that examine the precise effect of such legal reforms. Using original data sets, the impact of Chile's criminal law reforms on…
Chile's Criminal Law Reform
Many democratic governments in Latin America have implemented broad judicial reforms, some of which are aimed at making criminal law and legal institutions more transparent and modern. Although such reforms are important for democratic development, scholars debate whether the reforms result in more rights for defendants and whether they jeopardize citizens' perceptions about security. Using two original datasets and a fixed-effects model, this st…
The Rule of Law and Economic Growth
Ruling against the Executive in Amparo Cases
In this paper, we systematically analyze decisions made by the Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal from 1996 to 2006 in amparo cases, which significantly impact individual rights. We ask the following question: in these types of cases, what conditions led the Tribunal to assert itself against the executive? Through an analysis of Tribunal decisions during the presidencies of Alberto Fujimori and Alejandro Toledo, we find that the Tribunal is more li…
Taking rights seriously in Chile
According to development scholars, legal reforms should provide litigants with new rights, enhance efficiency, and increase citizen trust in legal institutions. I investigate whether some of these normative claims have been realized through Chile's landmark criminal law reforms occurring after its transition to democracy. I find that Chile's criminal law reforms have improved defendants' rights by reducing the percentage of individuals incarcerat…
The Rule of Law and Economic Development
With the enormous expansion of scholarship on this subject, “rule of law” has come to mean different things—ranging from security and order to the operations of courts and the administration of justice. We review the various streams of theoretical and empirical research by academics and practitioners, emphasizing the connections to economic development. The core logic is that security of property rights and integrity of contract underpin, respect…
Delegating Discretion
I test how the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, promulgated by the United States Sentencing Commission, affected district court decision making from 1999 to 2003. Policymakers effectively used legal regulation to constrain judicial discretion by specifying (a) the sentencing ranges applicable to certain factual patterns, (b) the departures from these ranges allowed for prosecutors, or (c) the departures allowed for judges. My results establish signifi…
The Rule of Law and Economic Development
With the enormous expansion of scholarship on this subject, “rule of law” has come to mean different things—ranging from security and order to the operations of courts and the administration of justice. We review the various streams of theoretical and empirical research by academics and practitioners, emphasizing the connections to economic development. The core logic is that security of property rights and integrity of contract underpin, respect…
The Rule of Law and Economic Growth
The Rule of Law in Post-Conflict Settings
This paper analyzes whether and to what extent countries reconstitute the rule of law following civil conflict. Drawing on an original data set of 47 cases in which conflict ended between 1970 and 1999, we find that the cessation of conflict has at best a modest effect on the rule of law. On average, countries revert to the pre-conflict rule-of-law status quo ante. In simple models, rule of law prior to the onset of conflict is the best indicator…
Economic Development Assumptions and the Elusive Curse of Oil
Scholars have argued that oil resources lead to poor quality institutions and governance, which causes slower economic growth, an increased propensity for civil war, and other maladies. Such conclusions, however, rest on strong modernization assumptions that oil resources are unrelated or detrimental to the level of economic development. Utilizing a unique multilevel version of extreme bounds analysis (EBA), we find that oil's deleterious effects…
The political determinants of judicial dissent
Many judicial scholars argue that judicial dissent stems from partisanship or political differences among judges on courts. These arguments are evaluated using the variation in political backgrounds on a constitutional court, Chile’s Constitutional Tribunal, using case-level and vote-level data from 1990 until 2010. The analysis shows that the rate of dissent rises after major reforms to the powers and judicial selection mechanism of the Tribunal…
Party Labels and Vote Choice in Judicial Elections
The vast majority of states use elections to select at least some of their judges. The chief institutional variation in these contests is whether the candidates’ partisanship appears on the ballot. This article expands on the extant literature with new data to examine how providing a party label influences voters’ decisions. Using a survey experiment involving a low-visibility state appellate court, we find that affixing party labels to judicial …
Ideological Voting on Chile's Constitutional Tribunal
In this article, we examine the relationship between judicial behavior on the Chilean Constitutional Tribunal and the political background of its judges since the constitutional reforms of 2005. We first examine judges' positions on rulings and find that some distinction has emerged among judges with different political backgrounds and between partisan members and nonpartisans. Notably, these distinctions vary across subject matter and case type.…
Chile's Criminal Law Reform
Many democratic governments in Latin America have implemented broad judicial reforms, some of which are aimed at making criminal law and legal institutions more transparent and modern. Although such reforms are important for democratic development, scholars debate whether the reforms result in more rights for defendants and whether they jeopardize citizens' perceptions about security. Using two original datasets and a fixed-effects model, this st…
Judicial backsliding
We have a highly developed theoretical and empirical literature on judicial independence, but there is less research on judicial backsliding: the process through which duly elected executives reduce court independence and thus collapse the separation of powers. We conceptualize judicial backsliding and argue that legislatures as well as executives are likely to be implicated in it. First, we confirm that populist leaders are more likely to engage…
Influenced by Power or Reasons? The Role of Amicus Curiae Briefs in Constitutional Court Decision-Making
In what ways do amicus curiae or friend of the court briefs shape the decisions of constitutional courts outside of the United States? Using a unique data set of more than nine hundred briefs from the Bulgarian Constitutional Court, hearing cases of constitutional review and legal interpretation, we analyze the Court’s propensities to both borrow language from briefs and cite the identity of interested parties. We find that the Court is more incl…
The Influence of Procurator Generals in Constitutional Review
After democratic transitions, many Eastern European countries reformed their political institutions in a piecemeal fashion. Focusing on the Bulgarian Constitutional Court from 1992 to 2012 and the Soviet-style procurator general, we analyze how legal reforms operate in practice in transitional societies. Using original data, we find that judges are influenced by the powerful and unaccountable procurator general. Judges’ decisions to strike down l…
Mixed Judicial Selection and Constitutional Review
Almost half the constitutional court judges worldwide are selected by a mixed selection system, whereby a specific number of judges are selected by different government institutions. What are the implications of this selection method and its variations for judges’ individual choices on constitutional review cases? An examination of vote choice on the Chilean and Colombian constitutional courts indicates that judges’ decisions to strike down laws …
Explaining dissensus on the Bulgarian constitutional court
Using original data, this study investigates the determinants of dissent on the Bulgarian Constitutional Court, which occurs frequently and is high by comparative standards. This analysis contributes to the debate on whether courts and judges are driven by policy motivations or legal doctrine by providing evidence from a constitutional court created after a democratic transition. Dissent is more likely when the court as a whole and individual jud…
Legal Reform and Good Governance
Legal reforms throughout Latin America have increased the transparency of the criminal justice process and improved defendants' rights. Many scholars conjecture that such reforms also improve “good governance” and by extension economic development. Paradoxically, despite such assertions, there are few quantitative studies that examine the precise effect of such legal reforms. Using original data sets, the impact of Chile's criminal law reforms on…
Ruling against the Executive in Amparo Cases
In this paper, we systematically analyze decisions made by the Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal from 1996 to 2006 in amparo cases, which significantly impact individual rights. We ask the following question: in these types of cases, what conditions led the Tribunal to assert itself against the executive? Through an analysis of Tribunal decisions during the presidencies of Alberto Fujimori and Alejandro Toledo, we find that the Tribunal is more li…
Delegating Discretion
I test how the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, promulgated by the United States Sentencing Commission, affected district court decision making from 1999 to 2003. Policymakers effectively used legal regulation to constrain judicial discretion by specifying (a) the sentencing ranges applicable to certain factual patterns, (b) the departures from these ranges allowed for prosecutors, or (c) the departures allowed for judges. My results establish signifi…
The Rule of Law and Economic Development
With the enormous expansion of scholarship on this subject, “rule of law” has come to mean different things—ranging from security and order to the operations of courts and the administration of justice. We review the various streams of theoretical and empirical research by academics and practitioners, emphasizing the connections to economic development. The core logic is that security of property rights and integrity of contract underpin, respect…
Taking rights seriously in Chile
According to development scholars, legal reforms should provide litigants with new rights, enhance efficiency, and increase citizen trust in legal institutions. I investigate whether some of these normative claims have been realized through Chile's landmark criminal law reforms occurring after its transition to democracy. I find that Chile's criminal law reforms have improved defendants' rights by reducing the percentage of individuals incarcerat…
The Rule of Law and Economic Growth
Ruling against the Executive in Amparo Cases
In this paper, we systematically analyze decisions made by the Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal from 1996 to 2006 in amparo cases, which significantly impact individual rights. We ask the following question: in these types of cases, what conditions led the Tribunal to assert itself against the executive? Through an analysis of Tribunal decisions during the presidencies of Alberto Fujimori and Alejandro Toledo, we find that the Tribunal is more li…
Ideological Voting on Chile's Constitutional Tribunal
In this article, we examine the relationship between judicial behavior on the Chilean Constitutional Tribunal and the political background of its judges since the constitutional reforms of 2005. We first examine judges' positions on rulings and find that some distinction has emerged among judges with different political backgrounds and between partisan members and nonpartisans. Notably, these distinctions vary across subject matter and case type.…
Legal Reform and Good Governance
Legal reforms throughout Latin America have increased the transparency of the criminal justice process and improved defendants' rights. Many scholars conjecture that such reforms also improve “good governance” and by extension economic development. Paradoxically, despite such assertions, there are few quantitative studies that examine the precise effect of such legal reforms. Using original data sets, the impact of Chile's criminal law reforms on…
Chile's Criminal Law Reform
Many democratic governments in Latin America have implemented broad judicial reforms, some of which are aimed at making criminal law and legal institutions more transparent and modern. Although such reforms are important for democratic development, scholars debate whether the reforms result in more rights for defendants and whether they jeopardize citizens' perceptions about security. Using two original datasets and a fixed-effects model, this st…
Economic Development Assumptions and the Elusive Curse of Oil
Scholars have argued that oil resources lead to poor quality institutions and governance, which causes slower economic growth, an increased propensity for civil war, and other maladies. Such conclusions, however, rest on strong modernization assumptions that oil resources are unrelated or detrimental to the level of economic development. Utilizing a unique multilevel version of extreme bounds analysis (EBA), we find that oil's deleterious effects…
The Rule of Law in Post-Conflict Settings
This paper analyzes whether and to what extent countries reconstitute the rule of law following civil conflict. Drawing on an original data set of 47 cases in which conflict ended between 1970 and 1999, we find that the cessation of conflict has at best a modest effect on the rule of law. On average, countries revert to the pre-conflict rule-of-law status quo ante. In simple models, rule of law prior to the onset of conflict is the best indicator…
Evaluating Theories of Decision-making on the Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal
High courts with abstract review powers to find laws unconstitutional may provide a strong check on other political actors and influence public policy if the judges in these courts are impartial decision makers. This paper tests existing judicial decision-making theories in relation to the behavior of judges on the Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal who are selected exclusively by Congress. Taking advantage of an original data set of judges’ votes …
Party Labels and Vote Choice in Judicial Elections
The vast majority of states use elections to select at least some of their judges. The chief institutional variation in these contests is whether the candidates’ partisanship appears on the ballot. This article expands on the extant literature with new data to examine how providing a party label influences voters’ decisions. Using a survey experiment involving a low-visibility state appellate court, we find that affixing party labels to judicial …
The political determinants of judicial dissent
Many judicial scholars argue that judicial dissent stems from partisanship or political differences among judges on courts. These arguments are evaluated using the variation in political backgrounds on a constitutional court, Chile’s Constitutional Tribunal, using case-level and vote-level data from 1990 until 2010. The analysis shows that the rate of dissent rises after major reforms to the powers and judicial selection mechanism of the Tribunal…
Explaining dissensus on the Bulgarian constitutional court
Using original data, this study investigates the determinants of dissent on the Bulgarian Constitutional Court, which occurs frequently and is high by comparative standards. This analysis contributes to the debate on whether courts and judges are driven by policy motivations or legal doctrine by providing evidence from a constitutional court created after a democratic transition. Dissent is more likely when the court as a whole and individual jud…
Mixed Judicial Selection and Constitutional Review
Almost half the constitutional court judges worldwide are selected by a mixed selection system, whereby a specific number of judges are selected by different government institutions. What are the implications of this selection method and its variations for judges’ individual choices on constitutional review cases? An examination of vote choice on the Chilean and Colombian constitutional courts indicates that judges’ decisions to strike down laws …
The Influence of Procurator Generals in Constitutional Review
After democratic transitions, many Eastern European countries reformed their political institutions in a piecemeal fashion. Focusing on the Bulgarian Constitutional Court from 1992 to 2012 and the Soviet-style procurator general, we analyze how legal reforms operate in practice in transitional societies. Using original data, we find that judges are influenced by the powerful and unaccountable procurator general. Judges’ decisions to strike down l…
The Role of Comparative Law in Political Science
Comparing laws cross-nationally elucidates how they restrain political and societal actors and how actors may use law instrumentally to reach their goals. The Article analyzes the extant use of comparative law in political science and describes areas where a more in-depth comparative study of law may enhance understandings of how law shapes politics, particularly in the areas of governance, judicial behavior, rights protection, and democratic tra…
Influenced by Power or Reasons? The Role of Amicus Curiae Briefs in Constitutional Court Decision-Making
In what ways do amicus curiae or friend of the court briefs shape the decisions of constitutional courts outside of the United States? Using a unique data set of more than nine hundred briefs from the Bulgarian Constitutional Court, hearing cases of constitutional review and legal interpretation, we analyze the Court’s propensities to both borrow language from briefs and cite the identity of interested parties. We find that the Court is more incl…
The Policy Impact of Court Decisions in Latin America and South Asia
Courts that Matter addresses whether courts can influence policy change.As indicated by Botero's title, she answers affirmatively under certain conditions.The book presents a well-developed theory and evidence from eight court cases in Argentina and Colombia as well as additional cases from India.Unlike other studies that only analyze court impact by whether courts' decisions are enacted and enforced, she goes further by defining impact in novel …
Rebuilding the Rule of Law in the Era of Democratic Backsliding
Signed, Sealed, Counted? An Experimental Study of Mail-in Ballot Signature Verification
Trust in elections is paramount for a democracy and citizens are more likely to cast ballots and support election results when they perceive election processes as trustworthy. However, with the advent of greater dependence on algorithms in election processes, we ask does a reliance on algorithms or a hybrid system for verifying signatures allay or increase citizens’ confidence in using them in elections? To answer this, we use unique survey exper…
Judicial backsliding
We have a highly developed theoretical and empirical literature on judicial independence, but there is less research on judicial backsliding: the process through which duly elected executives reduce court independence and thus collapse the separation of powers. We conceptualize judicial backsliding and argue that legislatures as well as executives are likely to be implicated in it. First, we confirm that populist leaders are more likely to engage…
Political science (22 works) · Law (21 works) · Law (16 works) · Judicial and Constitutional Studies (15 works) · Politics (15 works) · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems (12 works) · Economics (9 works) · Law and economics (9 works) · Legal and Constitutional Studies (9 works) · Sociology (8 works)